I. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to resynchronizing test signatures based at least in part upon a comparison between a received test sequence number and a retained test sequence number at a client device.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication; for instance, voice and/or data may be provided via such wireless communication systems. A typical wireless communication system, or network, can provide multiple users access to one or more shared resources. For instance, a system may use a variety of multiple access techniques such as Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM), Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), Code Division Multiplexing (CDM), and others.
Common wireless communication systems employ one or more base stations that provide a coverage area. A typical base station can transmit multiple data streams for broadcast, multicast and/or unicast services, wherein a data stream may be a stream of data that can be of independent reception interest to a user device. A user device within the coverage area of such base station can be employed to receive one, more than one, or all the data streams carried by the composite stream. Likewise, a user device can transmit data to the base station or another user device.
Recently, broadcast techniques such as Forward Link Only (FLO) technology have been developed and employed to provide content (e.g., video, audio, multimedia, IP datacast, . . . ) to portable user device(s). FLO technology can be designed to achieve high quality reception, both for real-time content streaming and other data services. FLO technology can provide robust mobile performance and high capacity without compromising power consumption. In addition, FLO technology may reduce costs associated with delivering multimedia content by decreasing the number of deployed base station transmitters. Furthermore, FLO technology based multimedia multicasting can be complimentary to wireless operators' cellular network data and voice services, delivering content to the same mobile devices.
As with other communications protocols, FLO technology is associated with a testing protocol, such that device minimum performance tests can be undertaken in a factory/lab/field environment. This testing protocol can be referred to as a FLO Test Application Protocol (FTAP). FTAP defines a set of procedures that, when implemented by both the network and the device, can be used for the device minimum performance tests in a factory/lab/field environment. FTAP flows can be configured and activated within a network to test specific device behaviors. In one example, an FTAP flow can include a series of data packets, wherein each packet spans one packet layer protocol (PLP). The packets can include information such as a test sequence number, a test signature, and a test data pattern.
FTAP flows can be employed to verify a physical layer of a communications protocol (e.g., Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)) by ensuring that data received by a device is consistent with data provided by a network. Such verification is problematic, however, in that it is difficult to verify the physical layer in a FLO system in real-time. For example, data generated at the network can be collected and compared with data received and collected from the device, wherein such comparison takes place offline. More particularly, sequence numbers and test signatures sent by the network can be compared with sequence numbers and test signatures received by the device, and such information can be collected and compared offline. While this may provide an accurate measure of correctness of received data, it does not provide any real-time analysis with respect to such data.